In Cameroon, the applicable laws give women the possibility of aquiring and owning land, even if these laws are diverse, complex, obsolete and not easily interpreted. Customary law prevails in a predominantly patriarchal context in which women do not always inherit land and therefore have no control over it; their access is also often limited to so-called secondary land rights, implying women hold these rights through male family members.

Despite the fact that land supports the world’s food systems and community well-being, land continues to be unequally distributed, poorly governed, and insecure for billions of people. While 50-65 percent of the world’s land is occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples and communities, only an estimated 10 percent of the world’s land is legally recognized as belonging to them, with another 8 percent designated by governments for them.

As the voluntary carbon market (VCM) expands across forest-rich regions of the Global South, the Mekong region stands at a decisive crossroads. With accelerating climate commitments and the growing monetization of forest carbon, the stakes have never been higher for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

As the world races toward climate resilience and sustainable development, one truth grows clearer: we cannot reach a just energy transition without just land governance. On May 6, 2025, the World Bank Land Conference hosted the session “From Data to Action: Tools to Monitor Corruption, Improve Transparency, and Enable a Just Energy Transition” to tackle the persistent challenge of land corruption and transparency head-on.

High-Level Political Will, National Commitments, and a Campaign for Global Progress

On May 6, 2025, land tenure and governance took center stage at the World Bank Land Conference in Washington D.C., with the high-level plenary session “Global Land Governance and Tenure: A Call to Action.” This session convened an influential coalition of global actors—government ministers, technical experts, and civil society leaders—to spotlight how securing land rights can accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 1

The Land in Peace project, led by Kadaster in collaboration with the Government of Colombia, highlights the use of the Fit-For-Purpose methodology for land administration in rural territories affected by the armed conflict.

Image: Poster “For Peace with Social and Environmental Justice — Turning the Chicoral Pact Around" by Luis Baquero

In February 2025, over 5,000 peasant, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant leaders gathered in Chicoral, Tolima – a small town in the plains of an Andean valley in Colombia. Today, it is known as an agricultural production hub, but in 1972, it became infamous as the site where political and landowning elites struck a deal to shut down agrarian reform – entrenching land inequality and silencing the voices of the rural poor for generations.

[Photo  credits:  Indhu on Unsplash; Free to use under the Unsplash License]

This blog post from Transparency International and the Land Portal is a small preview of the discussion we're co-organizing at the World Bank Land Conference next month. The focus is on moving from awareness to action with strategies to secure land tenure and access, while scaling up initiatives, investments, and policy reforms for climate change mitigation and adaptation - including tools to monitor transparency and corruption. 

Jordan’s 9.1 million people are facing serious environmental challenges. Land degradation due to over- exploitation of vegetation, and unsustainable agriculture and water management practices, have resulted in lack of fodder for livestock and reduced land productivity. This in turn has forced many of the country’s nomadic Bedouin people to abandon pastoralism and move to cities. 

Photo: Fungai Nyikadzino in her field where the harsh sun and low rainfall devastated her crops in southern Zimbabawe. She has now received improved seeds and goats from Oxfam and partners in an initiative aimed at improving livelihoods in the arid region. (Picture: Loliwe Phiri / Oxfam)